Chapter Ten
Savannah
My attention wandered as I sprayed the table with disinfectant and wiped it down. Mechanically, I moved to the next table and repeated the process.
“Earth to Savannah,” Ava called. “Come in, Savannah. This is your captain speaking.”
I looked over at her and shook my head. “You realize that makes no sense, right?”
“Why not?” she asked as she mopped the floor.
“Because the captain would be on the space ship with me, not on Earth.”
Ava laughed as she moved the bucket over and began cleaning another section of the floor. It was rare that she scheduled me to help close during the week, but Wednesdays the Bean closed down at six and we usually went out to dinner. Well, one of us picked up dinner on the way to my house. I rarely went to Ava’s. She was always welcoming while I was there, but I got the impression that she didn’t like people in her space. Also, Satchel loved Ava. Almost as much as she adored Rhys. Clearly, my cat was indiscriminate with her affections. Except with me. Most of the time, she barely tolerated me.
“I’ve been talking to you for the last five minutes,” Ava teased. “Where was your head?”
I shrugged and went back to wiping tables. “Nowhere.”
Ava’s eyes narrowed on me. “Not on your hot new boyfriend?”
The laugh that escaped me was bitter rather than amused. “What boyfriend?”
“Rhys!” she exclaimed. “As I recall, you two were spending a lot of time together a couple of weeks ago.”
I shrugged and finished cleaning the last table. To keep myself busy, I carried the towel and cleaning solution behind the counter and put it away. “We spent two days together. That’s it,” I answered.
“Savannah Lydia Baker, look at me.”
Recognizing that tone of voice as the same one my mother used when she knew I was evading her, I faced Ava.
“What happened?” she asked, propping herself up with the mop.
“He kissed me,” I answered, trying not to think about that kiss. If I’d needed any proof that my attraction to him wasn’t one-sided, that kiss had been it. My head had felt as though it were about to explode. Or maybe that was my underwear. Either way, something on my body had been perilously close to catching fire.
Ava’s eyes rounded. “And that means he’s not your boyfriend?” she asked.
“It is when he stops and tells you that it was a mistake. Then he finishes it up with how it would be wrong,” I emphasized the word and made air quotes with my fingers, which made Ava roll her eyes. “To be with you. I don’t want to be with a man who thinks it’s wrong to be with me! There’s nothing wrong with me. Much.”
Ava scowled. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Period. End of story.” She paused and seemed to consider something for a moment. “But have you thought about the fact that maybe he thinks it’s wrong because of who he is rather than who you are?”
“Huh?” I had no idea what she was trying to say.
Ava sighed and swiped the mop across the floor one last time before she put it in the wringer in the bucket and rolled it toward the back room. “What I mean is that Rhys strikes me as an old soul who’s experienced a lot of pain. Maybe he thinks that he’s taking advantage of you if he gets involved.”
Since Rhys had said something about being a monster and a parasite before, her words definitely made sense. This was exactly why my interactions with him confused me so badly. With his muted emotions, I couldn’t read Rhys clearly. It was easier if we were touching, but he was still somewhat blocked. After he kissed me at the botanical gardens, my own emotions had been in such a tailspin I’d been unable to read anything of his.
“Maybe,” I replied. “But I’m not going to push it. I might be lonely and I might want someone to love me, but I’m not going to beg him for attention. If he wants me, he knows exactly where to find me.”
“We should do a reading,” Ava stated. “Just to get a sense of what’s going on.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not gonna do it. I know exactly what’s going on. Rhys is either too afraid to get involved with me or he truly believes he’s not good enough for me. Either way, the only person who can change his mind is himself. I’ll do a lot of things for love, but I won’t do that.”
“Did you just quote a song?” Ava asked.
I frowned at her. “Maybe, but not intentionally.”
“Okay, so no tarot reading,” she agreed. “How about Thai food, ice cream, and wine?”
“Add movies that make me laugh and you have a deal,” I replied.
Ava smiled. “I can do that.”
“Fine. My house or yours?”
“Yours,” she said immediately. “I need cuddles from Satchel.”
I rolled my eyes. “I think you’ve been replaced as her favorite person. Brace yourself.”
“What? Not possible,” Ava scoffed.
I nodded. “She loves Rhys. Sometimes she’ll sit on the back of the couch and stare out the window at his house. If I try to talk to her, her tail twitches and she glares at me as though she’s plotting my demise.”
“Okay, so I’ll stop and get her a little present on my way too. I don’t want her to kill my favorite employee.”
That wasn’t saying much. She often hired college students to work part time throughout the year, but the turnover was high. She and I were the only tarot readers as well.
“Bribery might work,” I agreed.
“Great. I’ll meet you at the house in half an hour.”
We decided that she would get the wine and ice cream and I would order the Thai before we parted ways. I walked home in the early evening light, calling the restaurant as I strolled down the sidewalk. The sun would be going down soon and the sunset promised to be spectacular. Maybe I could talk Ava into sitting in my back garden to drink our wine and eat our take-out. Despite my plans to pretend it didn’t exist, I found myself glancing at Rhys’ house. There was a single dim light on in the front window and I knew he was likely sitting in his living room, reading a book or watching television. I wondered how he had been since the last time I saw him, but I tried to shove him out of my head. He’d made a decision and I wasn’t going to argue about it.
Maybe it was pride but I would not chase after a man, no matter how ridiculously hot he was. I might have strange talents but a man should want me enough to pursue me. Especially in the beginning.
Resolutely, I turned away from Rhys’ house and moved up the sidewalk toward my front door. Satchel sat on the windowsill, her little gray body wedged behind the blinds, and her blue-green eyes were full of accusation. When I opened the door, she ran over to me, meowing and blinking rapidly. I wasn’t sure if she was telling me all about her day, giving me the rundown of Rhys’ activities, or chewing me out for being gone until so late. However, when I leaned down to pet her, she reared back and pawed lightly at my hand until I picked her up and cuddled her to my chest.
“So you still love your mommy, I see,” I murmured as I shut the front door behind me and went through the house, turning lights on. I went straight back to the bedroom and changed into yoga pants and a t-shirt, relishing in the comfort.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door and I knew it was Ava before I opened it because of Satchel’s reaction. She ran straight for the door and stood on her back legs, batting at the wood with her front paws as she meowed loudly.
When I opened the door, Ava swept inside, holding four bags.
“How many bottles of wine did you buy?” I asked, taking two of the bags from her.
“Three.”
“Ava! We barely finish two between us. Why do you always bring so much wine? I think I still have a bottle left from last time.”
“That may be true, but our usual dinners are just for fun. This has to do with man trouble. Man trouble always equates to an extra bottle of wine.”
“What’s in the other two bags?”
“Four flavors of ice cream.”
I let my head fall back and I addressed my ceiling. “She wants my ass to be wider than it already is.”
“Whatever, you have a fantastic ass. Very J.Lo. Men love that.”
“If you’re going to say things like that, I definitely will need the third bottle of wine after all.”
I put the ice cream in the freezer as Ava poured us each a glass of wine. As though it were choreographed, the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of our dinner. I managed to talk Ava into eating dinner on my back deck and we enjoyed the changing colors of the sky while the sun went down.
The idyllic moment made me think of my conversation with Rhys at the botanical garden. Peace could be found in the least likely places if you just took a moment to look for it. This evening, this moment in time with my best friend, was the essence of tranquility.
“What are you thinking about?” Ava asked me.
I picked up my glass of wine and sipped before I answered her. “Rhys.”
She pushed her empty plate aside and leaned back in her chair, swirling the wineglass in her hand as she regarded me intently. “Are you finally going to tell me what happened?”
I sighed and drained my glass. As I poured another, I answered, “You know, it’s strange. I barely know him, yet I feel a connection to him that I’ve never felt with anyone else. Not even Neil.”
Neil was my last boyfriend. We’d dated my junior year in college. He had been four years older than my twenty-one and a great deal more mature than the boys I went to school with. He was a wonderful man but we discovered after a few months together that we just didn’t work. I was a homebody and, to an extent, he was as well, but he did like to go out and try new restaurants. I always found it difficult to frequent such public places because I was constantly bombarded with the emotions of the people around me. While most restaurants might seem like they were full of fun and happy people, nothing could have been further from the truth. Beneath the bright surface, I could feel the darkness of the thoughts that surrounded me. Pain, anger, disappointment, frustration, jealousy. Those emotions were almost painful when I was exposed to them for too long.
Neil wanted to have children, but I told him I wasn’t sure. After the relationship ended, I realized my uncertainty had more to do with our relationship and not because I didn’t want a child. I loved children. They broadcasted every emotion they felt at full volume, but there was no underlying agenda or malicious intent. While there was an exception to every rule, I found my interactions with children to be satisfying and fun.
Neil would make a wonderful partner for a lucky woman, but I was also relieved that lucky woman wasn’t me.
“Wow, that’s pretty serious,” Ava replied, taking me away from my thoughts of the past.
“Yeah, it is,” I answered, taking another sip of my wine. “At least on my part.” I recognized that I was getting tipsy, but I didn’t care. I needed to cut loose. I hadn’t talked to Ava about Rhys since the kiss in the park because I wasn’t sure how I felt about him. Now I knew.
Rhys could have been a man I fell hard for if he hadn’t been too stupid or too scared to realize that we shared something special. It might have been in its infancy, but our connection had the potential to become my extraordinary ordinary.
“So, what now?”
“Nothing,” I replied with a shrug. “He made his choice. I made mine. We’re going our separate ways.”
“Why do men always seem to have their heads up their asses? Do they like the view?” she asked, annoyance easily discernible in her tone.
I giggled. Then I snorted. My giggles became full-blown laughter. Ava joined me. “Like the view?” I questioned, snorting again. “I need to remember that. I’m going to have to use it.”
“You don’t curse, remember?” she pointed out.
“I might start just to tell that joke.”
Ava shook her head. “It wasn’t that funny, silly.”
Maybe not, but I hadn’t laughed much over the last few weeks. It was nice to let it out.
“Are you ready to eat ice cream straight from the carton and watch a funny movie?” she asked. “From what I understand, that’s practically a requirement when you have man trouble.”
“That’s a cliché,” I argued.
“Maybe, but it sounds like fun.”
She had an excellent point. “Okay, but I want to try something. I found this recipe on that pinning website. You take ice cream or sherbet and pour sparkling wine over it.”
Ava perked up in her seat. “So it’s a dessert that will also make you tipsy? Count me in!”
We gathered our plates and went inside for the movie and dessert. As I poured more wine and dished up ice cream, I said to Ava, “You know, I feel like we’re always talking about the state of my love life but you never bring up yours.”
She glanced at me with a droll look. “That’s because I don’t have a love life.”
“Why not?” I asked, genuinely curious. Despite our long friendship, Ava was an intensely private person. She rarely talked about her past or her relationships. I couldn’t remember the last time she even mentioned going out on a date.
A wistful expression flitted across her face. She looked a little lost and wishful. “No one seems…right,” she explained. “It’s like a piece of me is missing. An empty space that’s just for one person. Every time I meet a man, I feel as though I’m comparing him to someone else, even though there’s never been anyone else. After a while, I just gave up. It’s not fair to him if the relationship drags on and I’m not completely invested.”
While I understood what she was saying, I could also feel the yearning within her for a partner. For love. “But if you don’t look for your missing piece, how will you ever find it?”
Ava laughed, but there was very little humor in it. “It’s been centuries, Savannah. I doubt I’ll ever find what I’m looking for.”
I swallowed hard at her statement. I had always sensed that Ava had lived a long time, but centuries seemed longer than I expected. If I were achingly lonely after twenty-eight years, how would I feel after hundreds?
Ava seemed to sense my sadness and she smiled at me. “I’ve been around for a very long time. I love my life and I’m accustomed to being alone. I’m not pining away for the love of my life.”
“How old are you?” I asked her. “You’ve never answered me when I asked before, but now I really want to know.”
“I’d say I’m a few years older than Rhys,” she replied.
Though I suspected she was older than she appeared, I hadn’t expected that answer. How was it I managed to befriend two supernatural beings that were both thousands of years old?
“You were not the only lonely person when we met, Savannah,” she murmured. “And you were not the only one who needed saving.” Before I could respond, she gathered her bowl of ice cream and glass of wine. “Now, enough of this depressing stuff. I came here to cheer you up, not make you feel worse. Let’s go watch a movie, eat ice cream, and get tipsy.”
Feeling as though my perception of Ava Amaris had just been changed forever, I picked up my own bowl and glass and followed her into the living room.